Letter 1 – The First One

 

Dear Garrett,

I feel like I know you and that I don’t. I feel like I was very close to you, but maybe I wasn’t at all. I know that you were one of the loves of my life. I don’t know if I was yours, but I know you loved me. I wasn’t what you wanted me to be, a lot of the time. Maybe I wasn’t what you needed me to be. I don’t know. Feeling sorry for that.

I am unable to separate my strengths from my flaws right now. I thought I was a good mother, but I don’t know that I was. Or I am. What I thought was me being stable, consistent, reliable, maybe you saw as cold, or unfeeling. Or not feeling enough. I never felt cold toward you. I believed I needed to show you that you could count on me. That I would always be there, but that I also wouldn’t be manipulated or bent to your will. Now, I am confused. 

Did I think too highly of myself? My role. Was I not there in the way you needed me to be?  Or would I have fallen into a trap of serving you in a way that really wouldn’t have served you at all? I am entangled with you and no part of it is straight forward. Except for the fact that I know I loved you. I know I loved you. And I know you loved me. I know that I am sorry I didn’t hear you the way you needed me to hear you. I second guess myself. Are what I see as my strengths just devices of my ego, protections disguised by me to seem like good qualities? But really serving no one. I don’t know.